It's 8:20 a.m. on Sunday, March 14, 1991, and I'm about to start our climb of the first of eight peaks -- Peekamoose, Table, Lone, Rocky, Balsam Cap, Friday, Cornell and Wittenberg. My friend Steve Dundorf needs all eight of these peaks to complete the requirements for winter membership in the Catskill 3500 Club. Earlier in the season, we had climbed Kaaterskill High Peak and Windham High Peak, and now only these eight peaks were left. They all appear in a relatively straight lin e on the map, and the total distance covered would be no greater than about 15 miles -- certainly achievable by itself in a day hike. But, having climbed all these peaks previously (although never more than four on any one day), I knew that the terrain t o be covered would make this trip quite a challenge. Indeed, I wondered whether it was at all possible to do all eight peaks in one day. But Neil Zimmerman, known affectionately as "Catskill Zimmy," who had introduced me to hiking in the Catskills, ment ioned that he thought he had once done all eight peaks in the same day. So I figured that we'd at least give it a try.

I knew, though, that if we had any hope of getting out of the woods before dark (or even some reasonable time after dark), we would have to get an early start. We also needed to have two cars, since the plan was to start at Peekamo ose Road and end at Woodland Valley. Steve was only 16, so he couldn't drive. But he arranged for his older brother Jim to come along, and Jim had his own car. Since Jim could not come up until quite late on Saturday night, I agreed to pick up Steve, a nd we drove up together to Woodland Valley, where we arrived at about midnight. Soon Jim met us there, and we went to sleep. I slept in my Isuzu Trooper, while Jim slept on top of the Isuzu. Steve set up his own tent near the car and slept in it .

We woke up about 6:30 a.m., got dressed, and made a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal, using my gas stove. By around 7:45 a.m., we were ready to get moving. We decided to drive my Isuzu to Peekamoose Road and leave Jim's car in W oodland Valley. Although the straight-line distance from Woodland Valley to the trailhead on Peekamoose Road is only about ten miles, the distance by road between the two points is at least twice as long. We arrived at the trailhead at about 8:15 a.m., and started our climb of Peekamoose about five minutes later.

The first part of the climb was actually quite easy. Until we reached elevation 3100', there was virtually no snow or ice. Even above this elevation, you could generally walk around most of the snow and ice that did exist. Only a bove 3400' did the snow and ice pretty much cover the entire ground, and even here it was at most a few inches deep. We arrived at the summit of Peekamoose at about 10:30 a.m., and spent only ten minutes there. It took us another half an hour to reach t he summit of Table. After retracing our steps for a short distance, we managed to find the beautiful viewpoint from Table, and then bushwhacked to Lone. This bushwhack is one of the easiest in the Catskills, and we had very little trouble with it. Ther e was hardly any snow or ice below the summit of Table, and it took us about 50 minutes to reach the canister on Lone. It was now 12:25 p.m., and we all felt that we were doing just fine in terms of timing.

The next step was the bushwhack from Lone to Rocky. Here the more difficult part of the hike would begin. I've always found this bushwhack to be a little tricky, since you begin to encounter some spruce. But Steve did a fabulous job of guiding us, avoiding the worst of the spruce and leading us directly to the canister, where we arrived at 1:45 p.m. Here we spent about 20 minutes eating lunch.

Now we were faced with what I've always considered to be one of the most difficult bushwhacks in the Catskills -- the trek from Rocky to Balsam Cap. I'd followed this route twice before, and each time it took me about two hours to cover this one-mile stretch. The map here is very deceptive, since it shows very little change in elevation and relatively gentle grades. In fact, the descent of Rocky is very tricky, since there are some cliffs that must be descended, and the spruce go ing up Balsam Cap is quite thick. Moreover, the west face of Balsam Cap is littered with large blowdowns, most of which seem to be about three feet off the ground. I knew that this part of the hike would not be easy.

We managed to descend the cliffs without great difficulty, but it did take some time. As I figured, it took us about an hour to get to the Rocky-Balsam Cap col. It was now about 3:00 p.m., and we still had four of the eight peaks to do.

We stopped for a little while to check our bearing. Steve did some calculations, and pointed to a mountain ahead, slightly to the left. "That's Balsam Cap," he said. I looked at the mountain, and recognized its shape. A check wi th the map confirmed what I thought -- the mountain was Friday, not Balsam Cap! I turned to Steve and showed him the map. "Look at the shape of the mountain," I said to Steve. After examining the map closely, he concluded that I was right, and recalcul ated the bearing to the real Balsam Cap, which was visible ahead to the right.

In the meantime, Jim was looking at his watch. "It's already three o'clock," he pointed out. "We still have four peaks to go, with only about three and one-half hours of daylight left. And I don't have a flashlight!"

The problem was, though, that there was no easy way back. We were just about at the midpoint of the hike, and there was quite a way to go no matter which way we went. But Jim looked carefully at the map, and realized that perhaps some time could be saved if we bypassed Balsam Cap and Friday and took the most direct route to the Wittenberg-Cornell-Slide Trail. This was still no breeze. It required a bushwhack down through some spruce to the unmarked trail which runs along the Eas t Branch of the Neversink, which would then be followed to the marked trail. But it would probably save some time.

"I'm going back the most direct way," announced Jim. "I've got to get back before dark, and that's the only way I can do it." Steve took just the opposite view. "This is the last chance I have of finishing the 3500 Club winter pe aks this year. I've got to do it!" And, indeed, it appeared that there was no way to dissuade Steve.

But Jim was equally adamant that he must turn back. This put me in a very difficult situation. There were only three of us to begin with -- less than the generally accepted minimum number of four, for winter mountaineering. To sp lit up into even smaller groups was almost unthinkable. But there seemed to be no alternative.

If each was insistent on going his own way, whom should I go with? Here the choice seemed clear. Jim was an Eagle Scout, who told me that he had some previous experience hiking in the Catskills. He didn't have a map or compass, b ut I could give him mine. He was about 25 years old, and seemed mature and experienced enough to find his way back. On the other hand, Steve was only 16. His navigational skills were outstanding, but he was taking the more difficult route. There was n o question that if we were to split up, I'd have to go with Steve.

And split up is what we decided to do. I gave Jim my map and compass (Steve and I could share the remaining one), along with a pair of instep crampons. I would have liked to have given him a flashlight, too, but I only had one, an d it seemed more likely that I'd need it than that he would. As he was about to leave us, Jim said: "If you don't get back by 8:00 p.m., I'll call the police to report you missing." I thought about this, and figured that five hours should be sufficient time for us to get back. But, just to be sure, I said to him: "How about making it 9:00 p.m. instead?" And that's how we left it.

Steve and I continued up Balsam Cap. We followed a pretty direct route, and had no trouble finding the canister, but, as I had predicted, it took nearly an hour to get to the top from the col. It was now about 4:00 p.m. I knew th at the hike from here to Friday was not exceptionally difficult, and I hoped that we would not have much more trouble getting from Friday to Cornell. If it took an hour for each segment, we'd at least be on the marked trail by 6:00 p.m., and it would hop efully take us no more than three hours for the rest of the hike.

And, indeed, the hike from Balsam Cap to Friday ended up being surprisingly easy, with not too much spruce to impede our passage. The only real obstacle was the cliff on the south side of Friday. On other occasions, this cliff has posed some serious difficulties, but on this day, we found a way around it without much of a problem. By 5:10 p.m., we were at the summit of Friday and, again, we had found the canister almost immediately.

We had over an hour of light left, and only about a mile -- with little change of elevation -- to get to the blue trail. It seemed quite likely that we would be able to make it. In fact, the first part of the hike, which followed the open ridge down to the Friday-Cornell col, was very easy. It took us only 20 minutes to get to the col. Now I felt confident that we were right on track.

But then things changed. We hit some of the worst spruce that I've ever seen in the Catskills. It was a thick, nearly impenetrable thicket. Every step you took required you to pause and push aside branches directly in front of yo u. Progress was excruciatingly slow. We were going about 1/2 mile an hour -- if we were lucky. Steve went a little bit in front of me, but even he was traveling at a very slow pace. You just couldn't go any faster through the spruce. Once, my leg fel l into a hole, and it took me several minutes to get it out.

And it was starting to get dark. Before we knew it, it was 6:30 p.m., and it was almost completely dark. Both Steve and I turned on our flashlights, and continued hiking through the dense spruce. Even with our flashlights, we cou ld barely see ten feet ahead of us, and we had no real sense as to which direction we were traveling in. We were, however, reassured by two things. First, we were following a north compass bearing, which just had to lead to the trail. And we were also following along a ridge, with a drop on each side. I knew that we were not descending, and my altimeter consistently read about 3,620' -- just about the elevation shown on the map for the correct route.

So we continued along. At one point, Steve thought that he saw Cornell Mountain to the left through the trees. "No," I said to him, "that's Slide Mountain, not Cornell." In any event, we just continued following our compass beari ng to the north.

Another thought came to mind: I knew from experience that it's not easy to find a trail after dark. The blazes appear only intermittently on the trees, and it's easy to walk right past the trail without realizing it. But after th inking a little more, I realized that this would not be a problem on this hike. There certainly would have to be a break in the impenetrable spruce for the trail, and that interruption in the spruce thicket would be more than sufficient to call the trail to our attention.

Finally, about 7:30 p.m., Steve announced that he had found the trail. It had taken us about an hour to cover a distance of little more than one-quarter of a mile. And this was with a very fast hiker! Well, at least we had reache d the trail, which we would be able to follow back to the car.

But another problem had appeared. My flashlight had been growing rather dim, and now it was almost completely dead. Luckily, Steve had a fancy Arctic headlamp, which gave quite a bit of light, and came equipped with batteries that were supposed to last several hours, even in very cold weather. Both of us were now dependent on Steve's headlamp. For the rest of the hike, Steve would go for a short distance, stop, and turn around, so that he could shine the light on the trail in fr ont of me. I would catch up to him, and then we'd repeat the process. Obviously, this slowed us down considerably, but at least it enabled both of us to proceed safely.

Well, we were on the trail, but the trail was a sheet of ice. Luckily, we both had full-length crampons. I had already put mine on at the summit of Friday, and Steve now put his on. Indeed, it would have been almost impossible to climb up (and especially down) Cornell and Wittenberg without the crampons. Unfortunately, my crampons were very dull and sometimes slipped on steep slopes. I was very cautious on the icy downhills, and actually preferred to step with crampons on rock rather than ice!

It took only about 20 minutes for us to reach the summit of Cornell. On the way, we noticed a paper bag in the middle of the trail. I picked it up, and found that it was from the Wyckoff Bakery. Inside were an apple and a brownie . There was no note inside, but I was virtually certain that the bag must have been left by Jim. That meant that he had gotten at least this far. Now we were on the trail, so I presumed that either he had made it back before dark, or darkness arrived s omewhere further on the trail, and he stopped and waited for us. Either way, he was apparently safe. I gave the brownie to Steve, and I ate the apple. I think it's the first time I ever ate a frozen apple, but it did taste pretty good under the circums tances.

When we reached the summit of Cornell, we stopped briefly to enjoy the nighttime view, and then continued on to Wittenberg. On the trail, a short distance beyond the summit, there is a 10-foot sheer drop through a cleft in the rock . This spot is extremely difficult to negotiate even in good weather, and now we had to descend it in the darkness when it was covered with ice! Steve went first and managed to get down without much difficulty. I followed. Somehow, I was able to wedge myself in the rock cleft and to descend with the help of my crampons. Once we got down this spot, I was quite confident that we could manage to overcome any other obstacles that we might encounter on the way down.

At about 8:40 p.m., we arrived at the summit of Wittenberg -- the last of the eight peaks that we had set out to climb. The view was really spectacular, with the lights in the distance clearly visible over the reservoir. I began t o realize that the 9:00 p.m. deadline that we had set would soon be here, and we had several more hours of hiking to go. I knew that Jim would probably be calling the police, who might order a search, and that he would also be calling his parents to repo rt his brother missing. But what could we do? Absolutely nothing. There was no way to reach anyone in the outside world. All we could do is continue to hike back, going as slowly as necessary to avoid potential injuries. And that is what we did.

The descent of Wittenberg is very steep in places. It is not an easy hike under ordinary conditions, and the darkness and ice made it much more difficult. I don't think that we could have gotten down without crampons, and even wit h the crampons, the going was very slow. The ice ended by the time we reached elevation 3,100', and we stopped to take off our crampons. This is the only point on the hike at which I got somewhat cold, despite the fact that for the entire hike, the temp erature was about 20° . After about 20 minutes, we were on our way again.

From here on, the going was a little easier. There was no ice or snow, and the trail was relatively level. There were even some stretches where I could manage to follow Steve without him having to shine the light back at me. We a rrived at the junction with the trail to the Terrace Lean-to at about 10:15 p.m., and continued on the blue trail towards Woodland Valley.

All went well until about 11:15 p.m. Here we were at about 2,500' elevation, and we couldn't find the continuation of the trail. I remembered this spot from a previous hike, and knew that the blazing here was poor. Although we lo oked carefully in all directions, we simply could not find any further blazes.

And we had another, potentially more serious problem. After nearly five hours of continuous use in these below-freezing temperatures, Steve's headlamp was getting pretty low, and would soon go out completely. But leave it to Steve . He had packed a spare battery! However, it was nearly pitch black out, and we couldn't change the battery without some light to see what we were doing. I took out my flashlight, and found that the batteries had built up enough power to provide a weak light, at least for a short period of time. It was enough to allow Steve to change his battery.

Now, what do we do? We simply could not find the trail. Well, we knew where we were and where we had to go, and we had a map and compass. So we decided to bushwhack down to the car. The route was rather steep in places, but it w as entirely downhill, and the ground was clear of snow and ice. At one point, I decided to slide down one of the steep slopes. Steve said to me: "It's not that steep! You could walk down that slope!" I replied: "Steve, I know that I could< /I> walk down, but I don't want to!" I was, after all, a little tired by now, and I decided to go down the easiest way that I could.